<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Sylvan Grove by VeloxVoid</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923749">The Sylvan Grove</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid'>VeloxVoid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Eventual Happy Ending, Feelings Realization, Hanahaki Disease, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, References to Depression, Romantic Fluff, Short &amp; Sweet, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923749</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashe was not a Blue Lion, nor a student of Garreg Mach. Instead, he was a nameless soldier lost amongst the masses of the Faerghan army. After the war, he escapes to the local flower shop, working there to will away the scars of war.</p><p>There, he meets Dedue. A love blossoms inside him that he will never admit, but with it comes a price. Ashe has contracted hanahaki disease, and Dedue is the only one who can help him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert &amp; Dedue Molinaro, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Dedue Molinaro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sylvan Grove</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was written as part of "Secretum Hortus" — a hanahaki-themed zine! If you'd like to download this zine and its merch for free, you can do so: <a href="https://gummizines.itch.io/secretum-hortus">here!</a></p><p>I'm <a href="https://twitter.com/VeloxVoid">VeloxVoid</a> on Twitter if you'd like to follow me for more. I'm currently taking a break for my mental health but I should be back fairly soon :)</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The war would always plague him. Images of grey battlefields, white sunbeams glinting off steel, the roars of the dying swimming in his ears. His allies strangers, the king he served a mystery. Ashe Duran breathed heavily, closed his eyes, and willed those thoughts away. He clasped his hands over his ears and remembered what his physician had told him.</p><p>
  <em> No more war. It’s over. You’re safe now. </em>
</p><p>When at last he opened his eyes again, he squinted slightly, the bright lights of the garden filling his vision. They were good colours — happy colours. This was the place he liked.</p><p>Ashe’s new job in <em>The</em> <em>Sylvan Grove</em> was his escape. A flower-shop. A small, cosy building with a huge garden in the back, displays of flowers filling it for customers to peruse. The young war veteran, still only 22 years old, had a simple job: to tend to the plants.</p><p>In a dark blue apron, its colour matching the hoodie he wore underneath, Ashe went about his job with pride. He watered and fed the plants, repotted flowers, cut off dying branches. He weaved through the stone paths of the garden, shrub fronds brushing his face from where the wildlife grew behind their walls.</p><p>Here, he was safe. He was calm. He had started a new life, away from the terrors that baned him. Ashe filled up a metal watering can by a hose in the wall and turned, finding the rows of hydrangea bushes blooming beautifully behind him in their rainbow colours. Bright pink ones faded into softer lilac ones, until eventually the gradient ran to blue. Ashe placed one hand in the pocket of his hoodie with its soft woollen lining, and began to water the hydrangea at their roots.</p><p>A figure materialised at his side as if out of thin air, casting a shadow across the blooms. Startled, Ashe turned, and found himself looking up into a face.</p><p>Such a handsome face. Such an incredible, astoundingly attractive face. His jaw was square and sharp enough to cut, but his eyes were soft and delicate. So fiercely did the pools of turquoise — like two tiny droplets of the ocean itself — contrast against his dark brown skin. Tiny white scars were etched into the surface of his face, one across both of his lips. A downy fuzz of stubble dotted his jaw, and he blinked down at Ashe with an expression of concern.</p><p>“Hello, Mr. Duran,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice.</p><p>Ashe felt himself blush at once. He didn’t recognise this man, but butterflies swam in his stomach. “Good afternoon,” he stuttered back.</p><p>“I apologise for not introducing myself earlier. I’ve been away from work sick, but I’m the owner of <em>The</em> <em>Sylvan Grove.</em> It’s a pleasure to meet you.”</p><p><em>Oh, no.</em> This man was his boss? <em>Oh, Sothis above. </em>This was Dedue Molinaro — the man he’d been informed of upon starting his job. The owner. Ashe had expected the man to be stern, formal, but the person standing tall before him seemed… warm.</p><p>“Mr. Molinaro!” he could only say, his voice a squeak.</p><p>“No need for formalities.” A soft smile cradled Mr. Molinaro’s lips, and the surface of the sun seemed to dance in his eyes. “Please, call me Dedue.”</p><p>“Oh, likewise! I’m Ashe.”</p><p>The man’s smile widened. “Then I shall call you Ashe. It is a lovely name.”</p><p>That had been the start of it. A simple interaction — one that Ashe would usually never think twice about — but for some reason, Mr. Molinaro made him feel different. He was still Ashe’s boss, and would give him directions for how to help out around the shop’s gardens, but still the young man could not help but feel anxious around him.</p><p>He would stutter and avert his eyes when they spoke — would feel butterflies burst inside his stomach whenever Mr. Molinaro called his name. As Ashe came to work each day, he would feel <em> excited</em>. Excited that he got to spend time in the presence of a man so beautiful.</p><p>That was, until he realised something.</p><p>Mr. Molinaro would never like him back. Why would anybody like <em> him</em>, lowly Ashe Duran — a shell of a boy racked by war? No wealth, no talents, nothing going for him. There was no good reason for a man as handsome and kind and successful as Dedue Molinaro to <em> ever </em> like him. To ever even <em> glance </em> at him.</p><p>The excitement of coming to work each day was quickly replaced by a hurt — by a sad sort of longing. Deep down, Ashe knew that he would never be loved.</p><p>Whilst watering the fuschia beneath the city’s ruthless sun one day, Ashe began to feel a weight on his chest. It pushed against him, heavy and oppressive, until eventually it caused a dull pounding in his head.</p><p>He groaned, trying to ignore it, but the chest pain grew stronger. Sensations of itching rose inside his lungs, and Ashe panicked as he realised that this wasn’t merely emotion — was not him slipping back into the depression that had cradled him to sleep each night since the war began — but instead was physical.</p><p>He began to cough hard, lungs wishing desperately to expel whatever infection had settled within, and he started to choke. Panic took over; Ashe coughed frantically, unable to breathe as something blocked his throat. He grasped onto the nearest wall and spluttered; just as oxygen grew short, vision beginning to blacken into tiny white pinpricks, he collapsed onto his backside.</p><p>After a few painstaking moments where Ashe feared death itself — memories flicking back to the battle he’d been felled in — he coughed something up. He could breathe once more, eyes readjusting as he felt soft weights begin to fall into his lap. Flowers had spilled from his mouth. They’d tumbled down his front, clusters of tiny pink-white petals attached to one another as though in bouquets the size of fingertips.</p><p>By now, Mr. Molinaro had been alerted, and was running to Ashe’s side with questions of if he was okay. He stopped over him, however, as his gaze found the flowers.</p><p>Confused words left his lips. “You have... hanahaki?” Those turquoise eyes seemed to scintillate, how the sun’s rays rippled across water in the breeze.</p><p>Ashe felt more itching in his lungs, and raised his balled-up fist to his lips to cough into it. More of the petals erupted from within, scratching at his throat until he’d choked them all out. They coated his lap like a woven blanket, and Ashe felt his cheeks burn wildly as Mr. Molinaro leant down in front of him.</p><p>The man reached down and lifted up a bundle of the petals. “These are gypsophila,” he told Ashe, voice light in his throat. “Baby’s breath…”</p><p>And then he looked into the shorter man’s eyes, his own swimming with some sort of sorrow. A sad, disbelieving emotion.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ashe whispered. Tears rose to his eyes — although whether it was from embarrassment, sadness, or from the petals scratching at his throat, he couldn’t tell. “I just started feeling ill. It… was ever since I met you.”</p><p>Of course, Ashe and Mr. Molinaro knew full-well what hanahaki meant. To contract the disease after meeting somebody was proof of love-sickness.</p><p>“In floriography, baby’s breath is a symbol of everlasting love.” Mr. Molinaro’s eyes never wavered.</p><p>Shame bubbled over inside of Ashe. “Sir, I’m so, <em> so </em> sorry—”</p><p>But the larger man’s scarred lips broke into a smile, eventually joined by a chuckle that resonated deep in his throat. “Why didn’t you say something?” he asked, face more joyous than Ashe had ever seen him before.</p><p>“Huh?” Ashe was confused. “O-Of course I wasn’t going to confess to you! That would be… inappropriate! And wrong! You’re my boss—!”</p><p>“I’m your <em> friend, </em> not your boss.” Dedue reached forward and grasped Ashe’s hands in both of his. While they were calloused, they were warm, and they held him softly. “And… I would be happy to be more than that, if you’d like.”</p><p>Ashe’s eyes grew wide, words escaping his mind to leave him speechless. Instead, he coughed up another mouthful of petals.</p><p>Dedue merely laughed. “In truth, I have felt the same about you since we first spoke. You’ve been through so much, and yet you’re still so kind. We served in that same war, you know.”</p><p>“We did...?”</p><p>“We did.” Dedue’s face was so kind — so beautiful and impassioned. He squeezed Ashe’s hands in his. “That’s why I opened this shop. To bring some light to the world after all the horrors. I’m just… glad you asked for work here. Glad you’ve brought more light to my life than I’ve ever known, even in the short time we’ve known each other.”</p><p>Ashe’s eyes were growing hot, and he blinked tears down onto his face. Dedue stood, gently pulling the younger man to his feet with him. They both worked to brush the gypsophila petals from off of his clothes, giggling as they found some down the pocket of his apron.</p><p>Ashe was simply in disbelief, but joy and adoration coursed through his veins as he looked down at the large, scarred hands of the man he liked. When at last he looked back up into Dedue’s face, he saw the same childish happiness etched into his features. Ashe’s lungs didn’t itch anymore — his throat didn’t hurt. Now, all that filled him was love.</p><p>“Would you like to get some lunch?” he asked.</p><p>Dedue nodded, and reached up to brush some of Ashe’s hair out of his eyes. “I’d love to.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>